Referential Choice in the Narratives of Italian Speakers with Klinefelter Syndrome

Abstract

Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder characterized by an uneven neuro-linguistic profile. Whereas cognitive abilities appear to be within the normal range, KS patients often show poor linguistic abilities and language-based learning disorders. Although it has been proposed that KS can be considered a genetic model of language impairment, it is not yet well established whether speakers with KS are impaired in specific psycholinguistics aspects, such as reference production. The choice of an adequate referential expression (whether a full noun phrase, a null or overt pronoun, etc.) involves the use of memory mechanisms to represent the characters and actions involved, but also the ability to judge the attention and the knowledge of the hearer.

The present work focuses on KS speakers’ ability to report a story based on a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon (Arnold et al., 2009). We examine the ability to choose an appropriate referent (overt pronouns vs. null pronoun vs. full noun phrase) made during a narrative by Italian adolescents and young adults with KS (n = 8) and age-matched typically developing controls. In addition, we administered to each participant a full battery of cognitive and linguistic tests.

Overall our results indicate that the correct use of referential expressions did not appear to be significantly predicted by the cognitive level of the speakers. Therefore the ability to choose an appropriate referential expression is preserved in KS whereas receptive vocabulary and comprehension skills are significantly lower as compared to controls.